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Building companies

Founder choices, team building, monetization and shipping.

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Pieter Levels

Validate ideas by launching fast and charging money

Without VC funding, Levels builds mini-startups alone and launches within about two weeks. He validates ideas not just through sign-ups, but by checking if users actually pay with credit cards, accepting that most ideas will fail.

Pieter Levels on Bootstrapping Startups, AI Image Models, and Indie Development

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Original excerpt

I have an idea in my mind and I build it like a mini startup, and I launch it very quickly, within two weeks or something, of building it. And I check if there’s demand and if people actually sign up and not just sign up, but if people actually pay money.

Pieter Levels·

Pieter Levels on Bootstrapping Startups, AI Image Models, and Indie Development
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Open original · 2:14 (opens in a new tab)Transcript source (opens in a new tab)

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Launch with tools you already know

Levels launched Nomad List as a public, editable Google spreadsheet rather than building a website first. He crowdsourced city data from followers, and only converted it into a website after the spreadsheet went viral and accumulated hundreds of cities worth of data.

Pieter Levels on Bootstrapping Startups, AI Image Models, and Indie Development

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Original excerpt

Nomad List, which is like this website I made to figure out the best cities to live and work as digital nomads, it wasn’t a website. It launched as a Google spreadsheet. So, it was a public Google spreadsheet anybody could edit.

Pieter Levels·

Pieter Levels on Bootstrapping Startups, AI Image Models, and Indie Development
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Open original · 1:26:45 (opens in a new tab)Transcript source (opens in a new tab)

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Stick with familiar tools when startups grow fast

Levels attributes his use of PHP, HTML, and CSS to familiarity rather than deliberate choice. When his startups grew rapidly, he never found time to learn newer technologies like Node.js, prioritizing shipping over adopting supposedly better languages.

Pieter Levels on Bootstrapping Startups, AI Image Models, and Indie Development

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Original excerpt

I think it’s accidental, because that’s the thing I knew. I knew PHP, I knew HTML, CSS, because you make websites, and when my startups started taking off, I didn’t have time to… I remember putting on my to-do list like, “Learn Node.js,” because it’s important to switch, because this obviously is much better language than PHP, and I never learned it.

Pieter Levels·

Pieter Levels on Bootstrapping Startups, AI Image Models, and Indie Development
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Open original · 41:47 (opens in a new tab)Transcript source (opens in a new tab)

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Scaling often forces founders into unwanted management roles

Levels avoids raising funding because he dislikes the stressful life it brings. He notes that many heavily funded founders secretly regret becoming managers instead of doing creative groundwork, feeling trapped in CEO roles they don't enjoy.

Pieter Levels on Bootstrapping Startups, AI Image Models, and Indie Development

Supporting evidence

Original excerpt

I have a lot of founder friends and they tell me secretly, with hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and stuff, and they tell me, “Next time, if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it like you, because it’s more fun, it’s more indie, it’s more chill, it’s more creative.”

Pieter Levels·

Pieter Levels on Bootstrapping Startups, AI Image Models, and Indie Development
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Open original · 7:32 (opens in a new tab)Transcript source (opens in a new tab)

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B2B job boards support high prices via upsells

Levels describes Remote OK's revenue model, noting B2B job boards can charge premium prices. He added cosmetic upsells like rainbow-colored posts and background images for up to $1,000 each, reaching $140K monthly revenue at peak before macroeconomic changes reduced income significantly.

Pieter Levels on Bootstrapping Startups, AI Image Models, and Indie Development

Supporting evidence

Original excerpt

You start with 2.99, but at the peak, when the feds started printing money like 2021, I was making 140K a month with Remote OK with just job posts. And I started adding crazy upsells, like rainbow-colored job posts. You can add your background image. It’s just upsells, man. And you charge a thousand dollars for an upsell.

Pieter Levels·

Pieter Levels on Bootstrapping Startups, AI Image Models, and Indie Development
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Open original · 3:14:25 (opens in a new tab)Transcript source (opens in a new tab)

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Original conversations

VIDEO INTERVIEW

Pieter Levels on Bootstrapping Startups, AI Image Models, and Indie Development

Lex Fridman Podcast